


marigold

by cherryconke



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Family Fluff, Hair Braiding, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryconke/pseuds/cherryconke
Summary: Three years into the terrifying and completely unfamiliar realm of fatherhood, Felix could confidently say that he was completely wrapped around both of his daughter's tiny, sticky little fingers -  not that he’d ever admit it to anyone but Sylvain.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 198





	marigold

_“Ugh.”_

Felix fiddles with one of the numerous ties tangled in his hair, picking at it with the tips of his fingernails, but the knot is tied tight and won’t budge. He huffs, craning his head down and to the side to examine it closer: it’s a bright yellow ribbon, knotted at least four times, with a handful of pretty, hand-painted beads (gifts from Aunt Hilda, no doubt) and one sadly drooping daisy woven in. 

His hair had started out neat, like it did every morning: long split ends combed and braided back into a loose bun by Sylvain, freckled hands moving gentle and familiar over Felix’s scalp, fingertips grazing the back of his neck and the planes of his scarred shoulders, their morning routine as lazy and easy as it has been for years now. 

Felix pulls another ribbon out, a looser one this time, three threads of twine split and woven back into an uneven braid. He sets it carefully on the dresser atop a pile of similar trinkets, all gently pulled from the tangled mess of his hair, placed there earlier that afternoon by the clumsy, loving hands of his daughters. Ever since Dorothea and Ingrid’s visit last week, braiding has been their latest obsession, and with Ava’s curly hair chopped short to her chin and Rory’s baby hair too fine and wispy to do much of anything with, he hadn’t been able to resist their insistent pleas of _papa, papa, can we practice on your hair, pleasepleaseplease?_

Three years into the terrifying and completely unfamiliar realm of fatherhood, Felix could confidently say that he was completely wrapped around both of his daughter's tiny, sticky little fingers - not that he’d ever admit it to anyone but Sylvain.

“Need help, sweetheart?”

Felix hadn’t heard Sylvain come in through the half-cracked door, but his voice is low and gentle as it floats through the threshold. Felix watches him latch the lock behind him through the reflection of the gilded mirror propped up on the dresser, deliberately trying not to wake Rory, who’s nearly asleep against his shoulder. Felix is unable to stop the soft smile from tugging at the corners of his lips as they approach, Sylvain’s mouth wet and warm where it trails against the crown of Felix’s forehead as he leans in for a chaste kiss.

Felix doesn’t bother answering, just turns halfway around to reach his arms up and out. Sylvain smiles, and even though there’s a hint of tired exhaustion behind his eyes, it’s mostly love and joy as he shifts Rory and settles her gently on Felix’s lap. Her head is a heavy, warm pressure against his chest, dark brown eyes drooping sleepily to half-mast as she looks up at Felix, one tiny palm curling into the collar of his shirt.

Sylvain stands behind them, picking up the end of Felix’s braid where he left off, diligently setting to work untying the knotted ribbon. They’re quiet for a few moments, the only sound in their bedroom the dim crackle of logs burning low in the hearth, until Felix feels Rory’s breath slow down and even out against his neck, a little puddle of drool already staining the collar of his shirt. He strokes over the fur-lined trim of her capelet absentmindedly, watching Sylvain’s focused expression through the mirror.

“How were the rest of the letters? Anything good?”

Sylvain hums, twisting another crumpled daisy out. A bent hairpin follows. “Dimitri sends his love. He asked us to come down to the capital for part of the summer.”

Felix makes a face, immediately thinking of all the preparations that would have to go into getting the whole family down there; now that it’s not just the two of them, long days of riding on horseback and setting up camp in half-broken tents isn’t exactly feasible. Not to mention having to set the household up for success with both of them away. “Sounds like a pain.”

Sylvain carries on like Felix didn’t interrupt. “He asked about the girls. Something about _not wanting them to forget about Uncle Dima.”_ Felix bites his lip, struggling not to smile. Ending the war had smoothed over a lot of tension between everyone, but it turns out nothing could really heal past grudges and grievances like Ava’s face, tan and freckled as her father’s, beaming bright and innocent up at all three of them during their last visit: _Uncle Dima, will you teach me how to use a lance? Papa won’t let me play with them at home._

“Maybe going south could be nice. This one doesn’t exactly love the cold.” Felix idly strokes a thumb over Rory’s dimpled cheek, the hint of baby fat not quite gone yet. She’d been just a tiny bundle, wrinkly and red when Mercedes showed up with her on their doorstep last winter, and now she’s so big, toddling her first few clumsy steps and wanting so desperately to keep up with her big sister. 

Both Sylvain and Ava had fallen completely and irrevocably in love upon first meeting her, and it hadn’t taken Felix long to follow suit. Given up to Mercedes’ orphanage with no family to claim her, she’d brought Rory (then just _the baby)_ along to one of her weekly visits up to the estate for tea with Sylvain (and occasionally Felix, when he wasn’t too slammed with responsibilities). Ava had been enchanted by her wide, brown eyes _(like mine and papa’s!)_ and dark green hair _(like Linny’s!);_ Sylvain by her solemn little face, the quiet intensity with which she regarded the world; and Felix by the way his heart felt like it might burst in his chest at the sight of the three of them together, Sylvain wrapping both girls up in a giant bear hug of laughter and love. 

Once all the tea and biscuits were gone, Mercedes had pulled him aside, pointed out _look how well they get along,_ and that’s when Felix knew he was an absolute goner.

Neither he nor Sylvain had the hands-on experience of raising babies. Ava had come to them already half-grown at three years old, dropped off on the doorstep as _just a_ _Gautier bastard_ and immediately adopted into the family as _Ava Fantine Fraldarius_ (Annette had cried tears of joy upon hearing her middle name, much to Felix’s quiet delight). Sylvain had taken to double-fatherhood exceptionally well, though: waking up at all hours of the night to Rory’s small cries; bringing her along to audiences and council meetings; patting her back against his chest with one broad hand while signing letters with the other, the perfect vision of the father Felix always knew he could be.

“I can start getting the preparations together tomorrow if you’d like,” Sylvain offers. Felix feels a slight tug and the telltale sound of his hair getting ripped apart from a snarl. He winces when Sylvain pulls away, a small twig pinched triumphantly between his thumb and finger, the yellow ribbon wrapped around it and crinkled in knotted waves. “Got it!”

Felix huffs, shifting Rory slightly in his arms. “Are you done yet?” 

Sylvain _tsks_ , chiding him lovingly as his hands return to his hair. “Patience, Fe.” 

Felix is quiet through the rest of it. Sylvain’s hands move quickly now that the main knot is free, his fingers combing easily through dark silk. The last item he pulls out is a marigold, not quite as battered as the rest of the flowers, the faint smell of mellow sweetness perfuming through the air as Sylvain curves around him to place it in Felix’s half-empty water glass.

“I was drinking from that.” Felix’s protest is less than half-hearted, and Sylvain ignores it in favor of pressing a kiss to the corner of his downturned mouth, then another to the top of Rory’s head. He brings his hand up to lace fingers through Felix’s, resting gently against their daughter’s back. 

“There. All done. Is she asleep?”

He looks down to check, but Rory’s little body is still heavy, a dead weight against his chest, her dark lashes fluttering against rosy cheeks in a dream. She reminds him so much of their former professor, as calm and unflappable in sleep as she is awake. She hasn’t picked up any words yet (though Ava’s got more than enough for the both of them); she just sits and watches everything around her with quiet, dark eyes, uncannily introspective and world-weary for a barely two-year-old.

Felix nods, adjusting Rory more securely against his hip as he rises from the stool. She doesn’t budge, completely and thoroughly passed out, even when Sylvain leans in to wipe a smudge of drool away from her cheek with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’ll put her down. You get ready for bed.”

Felix is immediately swallowed up in Sylvain’s smile and starry gaze, fond and grateful all at once. It’s disarming, how even after all these years – their whole lives, really – Sylvain can still manage to make Felix feel absolutely weightless.

“You sure?” 

Felix leans in, nudges Sylvain’s cheek to the side with his nose to fit their mouths together. He can’t help the small smile he presses into Sylvain’s lips after they part. “I’ve got it.”

Sylvain might make a spectacle out of bedtime every night, diving in with dozens of songs and stories, each with a wide cast of characters, assigned different names and personalities and backgrounds, but sometimes Felix prefers it like this: fire crackling low, the flutter of tourmaline and viridian lashes against freckled cheeks, wrapped up soft in a halcyon haze. 

When he’d asked, half-teasing, about what story Sylvain had stolen all those characters from, his response had nearly broken Felix’s heart in half:

 _(I made them up,_ he’d explained over Ava attempting to climb her way up his shoulders, tugging on fistfuls of his hair. _It was something to do at home when Mik wasn’t around. I guess they kinda kept me company, huh?_

Felix agonized over the thought of Ava growing up alone, running through halls of the Fraldarius estate by herself. And so he didn’t exactly put up a fight when Sylvain held Rory reverently and asked, _what if we kept her, Fe?)_

Rory only sniffles a little when Felix unlatches her hand from his shirt collar and lays her down under the pulled-back covers. Ava’s fast asleep in the bed opposite, her mouth parted in the tease of a snore and her curly hair, so similar to Sylvain’s, sticking every which-way. She’s got each arm hooked around a stuffed animal, her favorite black cat knitted with soft wool in one chokehold and a white pegasus – her favorite gift from _Ingy_ – in the other. 

Felix pauses to untie the bobbled ribbon and slide the little fur capelet off of Rory’s shoulders – always so cold, this one, almost the opposite of her sister in every way – and folds it into a little quarter-circle, draping it over the top of the giant armchair between the two beds. It’s the very same one he and Glenn had grown up with; reupholstered in Fraldarius blue and nearly as wide as a full sofa, it just barely fits all four of them when the girls tumble onto their laps for bedtime stories. 

He only lingers there for a little bit, just long enough to stoke the fire in the hearth and smooth the flyaways back from each of their cheeks, leaving both of them with a kiss on their foreheads.

The fire’s died down a bit when Felix slips back into their bedroom, the door creaking quietly behind him. Sylvain’s propped up against the headboard and a mountain of pillows, glasses sliding down his nose as he flips through a stack of papers. 

“More letters?” Felix asks as he unbuttons his shirt, pacing to their wardrobe to slide an old, worn one of Sylvain’s over his shoulders. His scars from his youth have long since healed, criss-crossing down his shoulder in pale spider webs, the striated ends peeking out from beneath the edges of dark green cotton.

“Nah. Bernie’s latest draft. I’m doing an editing pass.” 

Felix crosses the room to pour another cup of water from the pitcher sitting on the dresser, a replacement for the now-vase with a single marigold in it, perched on his bedside table. “Another?” 

Sylvain looks up, amused. “Yeah, Fe. It’s a _series,_ there’s multiple.”

“Hmm.” 

It’s truly unfair how well he pulls glasses off, hair mussed and shirtless in bed, Felix thinks as he crawls beneath the blankets on the other side. The way Sylvain shifts to set the stack of paper aside to make room for his body is sweetly familiar, the intimate domesticity evident in how he pulls Felix against his chest, an arm slung over his hip to push up the loose shirt and trace circles into the dip between his floating ribs.

“Hi,” Sylvain rumbles into his ear, quiet and playful, a little bit of mirth in his eyes when Felix rolls over to cup his jaw with one hand, stroking absentmindedly over the ginger stubble there. His ring catches in the low light, reflecting dark opal luminescence where it rests against Sylvain’s cheek. 

“Mm. Hi,” he returns, only wrinkling his nose a little when Sylvain peppers scratchy kisses across his face. 

“I never asked: how was your day?” 

Felix thinks on it, fingers tracing irregular patterns across Sylvain’s hips and broad shoulders, stroking over the sunburst scar there. His day had started with a council meeting in the morning, then he’d spent the remainder of the afternoon down in the sprawling town for a short lunch with a group of Galatean soldiers who were riding through. Back at the estate, there’d been more proposals to read and one last meeting with the head of the household before he’d stolen away to play with Ava out in the garden (and get his hair completely and utterly wrecked).

It was just a day, so similar to all the others – but it was good. And now he’s here, sliding cold toes between Sylvain’s calves to warm them up, and that’s pretty good, too. 

“Good. How was yours?”

Sylvain chuckles, a gentle exhale of hot air against Felix’s forehead. “Mine was good too. What was your favorite part?”

Sylvain asks this sometimes, playful curiosity masking what he’s really asking for: that little bit of reassurance he needs from time to time - that everything is alright, that everything _will_ be alright. Felix can feel hazel eyes on him, patiently waiting. He’s gotten used to it over the years, has softened to the concept of verbalizing emotion, if only occasionally - if only for Sylvain.

“Playing with Ava in the garden.” Felix pauses, debating on whether he wants to open up this whole can of worms now. “She asked if we could get a dog.” Sylvain laughs, sleepily soft, before his lips find their way to the top of Felix’s head, pressing another kiss there.

“Yeah? And what did you tell her?”

“That a dog would scare off all the cats.” Sylvain laughs even harder, the curve of a grin pressed against his face. 

“That didn’t happen at the monastery! I remember them getting along great.”

Felix huffs and makes a face. “I know, I panicked. I didn’t want to tell her no outright.” Sylvain nods, like he knows exactly what he means. It would be accurate to say that both of their daughters were just a _little_ spoiled. 

“I wouldn’t mind a dog, though.” 

The smile on Sylvain’s face has turned playfully impish, quirking up at the corners in a teasing grin, trying to win over the hard set, slightly-amused line of Felix’s mouth. He drags a hand down the side of Felix’s face, tilting his head up to fit their mouths together once more. Felix lets himself sink into the warm, wet heat of his husband’s mouth for a few long seconds, finally parting to knock his forehead against Sylvain’s softly. Felix watches the flicker in his eyes as he reads his expression, mapping over each wrinkle and crease expertly.

“Okay, okay. We can talk about it in the morning.”

Felix hums satisfactorily in response, shuffling down to press his nose into Sylvain’s neck, close enough to feel the low tenor vibration through sleep-sweat skin when Sylvain murmurs _goodnight, sweetheart,_ into his forehead. 

When he finally drifts off to sleep, it’s with one hand laced through Sylvain’s hair, rubbing his temple with his thumb as they drift off. The other’s trapped between the heat of their bodies, resting against the constellation of freckles covering Sylvain’s chest.

And the steady, rhythmic beat beneath his palm – of his home and his heart, steady like waves falling way to the gravity-pull of the moon in full bloom? 

Well, that _has_ to be Felix’s favorite part.

**Author's Note:**

> i have never written anything more soft and self-indulgent in my entire LIFE
> 
> as always, ty [levii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviicorpus) for being my trusty beta, and [isaac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redeyedwrath) for looking this over too!!
> 
> also, i did a little doodle of [ava and rory](https://twitter.com/cherryconke/status/1236085743811883008) ❤️


End file.
